Recession Will Kill These Four Currencies in 2009

With teeming crowds of pushing, shoving – even lethal – Black Friday shoppers pouring into retailers from coast to coast, you wouldn’t think we’re in the middle of a worldwide recession.

In fact, the National Retail Federation said more than 172 million people went shopping this weekend – up from 25 million shoppers from last year. That’s a whopping 56% of the nation’s population.

But if you look closer, the crowds of shoppers only tell part of the story…

Black Fridays Aside, the Recession Stands

For instance, you can’t tell by looking around the stores on Black Friday that a huge chunk of would-be shoppers stayed home and spent US$534 million online this year, to save on their holiday expenses, according to MarketWatch.

You also can’t tell that overall, analysts expect consumers to spend 29% less on holiday gifts this year.

Meanwhile, as Americans were knocking each other over in the stores, the U.N. released an interesting bit of news over the

4:00 A.M. Friday morning. Over 3,000 anxious shoppers crowd outside a Kohl’s in Hartford Connecticut.

5:03 A.M. Over 2,000 shoppers literally trample a Wal-Mart greeter to death as they pushed through the Long Island store’s doors.

7:00 A.M. Serial Black Friday shoppers are already on their third or fourth store of the day in Ohio.

8:00 A.M. The big ticket items are already gone from shelves from many discount stores. The massive “Thursday only” sales have wiped out IPods, video games and laptops. Best Buy hands out vouchers to shoppers who lined up before 3:00 AM, and still didn’t get what they came for.

weekend. The U.N. is predicting the first worldwide recession since the 1930s … for 2009. If that wasn’t bad enough, developed nations are supposed to shrink up to 1.5%.

“It seems inevitable that the major countries will see significant contraction in the immediate period…even if the bail-out and stimulus package succeed,” according to the report.

In other words, the recession may have...